The Price twins, James and John, were just nine years old in January 1852 when their father, a modestly well-off plantation owner named William C. Price, attended the Alabama Democratic Convention. He came from deeply patriotic stock. His grandfather Anjer Price was a sergeant in the 8th Virginia in the Revolution. His father, William Vines Price, served in Russell’s Separate Battalion of Mounted Gunmen from Tennessee in the War of 1812—the unit gained some notice for being one in which Davy Crockett served.

At the convention, William served as a secretary, and the convention drafted various resolutions, including one in which it considered a recent Congressional compromise the final word on the “slavery agitation.”

Of course, it was not, and when war came in 1861, William’s twin boys, James and John, joined the 6th Alabama Infantry.

Together, the boys saw action at nearly every major battle in the East ranging from First Manassas to Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill to Antietam. At Gettysburg, they were involved in action around Oak Hill on Day 1, where the unit took more than one hundred casualties. They were in reserve for most of Day 2 in Gettysburg, but late that night, they were called upon to wheel around to Culp’s Hill where they waited the night in reserve and then attacked at 8:00 am. Sometime before 9:30 am, John Price was killed. He was buried anonymously in a mass grave near the hill, and the whereabouts of his remains are unknown after that. He may have been moved to Hollywood Cemetery or some place similar. His twin James lived to be 74, but after his death, the family placed a headstone for John next to James in New Hope, Tennessee.